Name: How Your Name Captured The Anime Community
Uploaded: 2019-09-11T12:51:23.000Z
Duration: 13 min 11 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

I've changed the premise of this video so many times while writing it, because this

movie is so jarring, i'll spend ages talking about the movie's obvious flaws then think

Reflexive pronouns

back to a certain scene and for a second, the movie seems to excuse itself of it's

I've seen Your Name a handful of times now and I can't deny the movie has captured

Now, whether that's because of my fascination with the movie's critical reception or if

Your Name is really doing something special.

To me, it's not a movie that is clearly good or bad.

I have definite griped with certain parts of the film, but there are also scenes that

And in writing this video i've kind of become fascinated with the spectacle of Your Name.

So I want to spend this video looking into the movie, I want to find out not only why

I was captured by it but also why the larger community has so universally praised it.

How has this Mokoto Shinkai movie captured the anime community.

I'm going to look firstly at the opening of the film to see how it initially grabs

The first scene opens with our main character waking up in the morning before school.

What the movie does here is almost starts the movie slightly after the story starts.

The movie references events from a previous day that we havn't seen.

This is to put us in the same situation as our main character Mitsuha, but also to create

that initial spark of mystery in the story.

We're also told about an approaching commit.

The movie gives the commit supernatural connotations but does it in a very subtle way.

This and Mitsuha's reaction to her memory loss of yesterday is normalising the fantasy

Rather than mitsuha reacting with traditional shock or awe, she reacts confused and brushes

This is continued in the next scene where Mitsuha goes to school.

Literally, the first thing we see here, the teacher's board, is packed with information.

As the mystery of the day before continues, we get a shot of three phrases written on

The first is “Dusk”, then “The witching hour” and finally “Tasokare”.

These are massive clues to the story, and if you catch them, work as brilliant foreshadowing.

The movie revolves around the idea of dreaming and magical happenings during the night.

The phrase “Dusk” here sets the time, then “The witching hour” is another phrase

for the time Midnight, usually used in supernatural stories where the sun going down triggers

And finally Tasokare, which the teacher defines as “Who's that in the gloom?”.

It's an old japanese phrase that was used long ago at dusk, it was used to ask who someone

We then get a full shot of the board where an old Japanese poem is written out:

Please don't ask me, “who's that in the gloom?”

I'm waiting here for my love, in the september dew”

That's the english translation by the way, but it's a lovely poem and you can imagine

how it would sound in it's native language.

You can see how this all beautifully foreshadows that upcoming narrative, it's actually a

This isn't delivered as a voice over by a old wise man or anything, it's just background

noise from a lesson in school, once again normalising fantasy.

There's a final nice bit of foreshadowing as the teacher calls on Mitsuha for not listening,

Mitsuha stands up and the teacher says “Oh, so do you remember your name today?”.

This is a reminder of what happened yesterday and a hint towards the importance of remembering

We then have a conversation with the 3 friends outside, Tessie jokingly suggests that Mitsuha

is apart of a multiverse from the comic he's reading, a complicated theory about endless

dimension that could be relevent to the story but it's a bit far fetched for this video.

So far in the movie we've been subtly introduced to various mechanics of Your Name.

We know this is a supernatural show, there's a strong level of mystery already established

in the story before it even gets started.

The next few scenes of the movie finish the first segment of the story, but they're

They forget the subtle story telling of previous scenes and opt for a voice over explanation,

spelling out plot points to us about Mitsuha's father and their family tradition.

Plot points that become throw-away subplots later on in the film.

It's a shame because the film really wasted valuable time here.

Take a note of the pacing too, this is 17 minutes into the movie, which is only roughly

100 minutes long, not including the credits, so this is almost a 5th of the movie's runtime

It's given us hints and set the tone, but it's taken a long time to do so.

It's up to you whether this slow pacing helps the effectiveness of faster paced sections

or wastes valuable time that was sorely needed towards the end of the film.

So this next part of the film, for the next 10 minutes or so is where Your Name really

We begin with our main character Mitsuha seemingly waking up in a boy's body, just after boldly

This is all brushed off as a dream and Mitsuha doesn't take it seriously at all, once again

She then lives out a day as this boy in Tokyo.

What I like about this section is how huge and busy Tokyo feels, I can assure you it

wouldn't have worked as well if we hadn't spent so much time in the country first.

Mitsuha's entrance to the bustling streets of Tokyo feel like, once again, a really nice

This section is essential for fueling that initial sense of mystery, we now have something

to connect the dots with these supernatural undertones.

And then, almost 30 minutes into the movie, the premise is revealed.

Mitsuha is swapping bodies with a boy in Tokyo, Taki.

I think it could've come quicker, I don't think 30 minutes of build-up to a twist that

is pretty obvious was necessary, but time isn't something very wisely used in Your

Regardless, the story is flowing nicely now and there's a lot of pay-off.

The slow start makes this section of the movie feel fast and vibrant.

This is the end of the first act, and the movie, once again feels the need to have a

voice over explanation of what's happened.

I think these hurt the flow of the movie and don't really respect the viewers ability

We then have a huge tone shift for the next segment, a part of the movie that's probably